


Something... something... something...

by MirandaRoseOfSkywall (lostinmymindforever)



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:52:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7444981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinmymindforever/pseuds/MirandaRoseOfSkywall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Again Khadgar awoke in his bed in Dalaran.</p><p>And again.</p><p>And again.</p><p>And again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something... something... something...

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, please forgive me, I have no idea where this one came from.

His vision is filled with red, the dark sick crimson of freshly spilled blood. Everything is covered in it, no inch nearby is untouched by the precious fluid that is seeping out of Lothar’s body. Khadgar screams, desperately trying to do something, anything to stop the flow. He knows that Lothar is dead, there is no way he had survived the brutality, his head barely hangs onto his body by a few muscles and skin. Khadgar screams, screams until his voice is gone, screams until he can’t breathe. He doesn’t see the form come up from behind him, barely registers the blade sinking into his flesh. And then he knows no more.

-

Khadgar wakes with a jolt, heart pounding in his chest. He looks around the room, blinking the image out of his mind. How many times now has this happened? How many lives has he lived and died or watched everyone else die? How many times has it been since the first, the very first time?

He throws his head back down onto the pillow, thinking hard, trying so desperately to remember how this all began.

-

Karazhan. They were fighting Medivh, but he was too strong for them. Lothar was the first to go, tossed against the wall with a sickening crunch of bones, his head falling at an unnatural angle, and Khadgar knew the man’s neck was broken. But still Khadgar fought, tried to stop Medivh, or the demon or whatever it was possessing him. Khadgar wasn’t strong enough. He found himself in Medivh’s grasp, felt his life force, his essence being ripped from his body, and then… then he awoke in Dalaran.

And once more he left, renounced his calling, fled to Stormwind, and the whole thing happened again.

This time though, this time his death came at the hands of an Orc, the Durotan of this world, this reality, this plane of existence being completely and utterly one of Gul’Dan’s Horde. He’d snapped Khadgar in half as if he was no more than a twig.

-

And again Khadgar awoke in his bed in Dalaran.

And again.

And again.

And again.

-

Khadgar is starting to lose track of how many times it’s been, how many deaths he’s had.

It’s always… something.

There’s something he’s missing, something he needs to do, something, something, something… the word echos in his mind.

He leaves Dalaran once more, making his way to Stormwind yet again, as staying away hasn’t helped, neither has staying in the city of the Kirin Tor. And once again bodies are brought in, bodies killed by the invaders from Draenor, and Khadgar is once more dragged in for questioning.

One more time he comes face to face with Anduin Lothar, and something… something is different. The man watches him with a look that none of the others have had in their eyes. There’s something…

And Khadgar finds himself pinned to the desk, again, though in other times it’s been the wall or the floor even, so the desk is familiar, if a tad bit annoying. And then he feels it, briefly but it’s there. Lothar is hard. The act of pinning Khadgar to the desk has him hard in his pants and Khadgar wants to… by the Light he doesn’t even know what he wants. He begs and he pleads, and Lothar allows him to investigate the bodies, and as each time, well each time other than the first where he hadn’t really known what was happening and had gotten some of the Fel directly in his face, dying soon after from it’s effects, he backs away, covering his mouth.

Again he is taken to Goldshire, and talks the King into having the Guardian summoned. He wants to warn them, wants to tell them all the dire truths he knows, but he can’t, they’d think him mad, they’d throw him in a cell, and when Stormwind burned he’d burn with it. He wants to shudder at the memory but keeps his cool.

This time, unlike all the other times he’s flown to Karazhan with Lothar, he sits in front, Lothar’s arms reaching around him to handle the reins, and once more Khadgar can feel the man grow hard as their bodies come in contact. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t… and then they stop, not yet at Karazhan and Lothar is setting the gryphon down, and Khadgar wants to scream, wants to tell him they need to continue on, and Lothar just looks at him, that same something in his eyes.

“How many times, Khadgar?” Lothar asks, the question demanding truth.

“What do you mean?” Khadgar answers with a question, not really knowing what Lothar is asking him to answer.

“How many times has it been for you? These events? I see it in your eyes, bookworm, I see the same look I’ve seen in my own eyes in the mirror for far too long now. How many times has it been?”

“I don’t know. I lost count. I...” Khadgar wants to sob, he isn’t alone in this. Lothar, at least this Lothar, understands.

“You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

And Khadgar nods grimly. They need to stop Medivh, and they need to do it now, before… before things go too far. “Can you do it?”

“Do I have any other choice? Do we have any other choice?”

“We’ll be fugitives.”

“If they find out it was us, then yes. But...” Lothar looks at him once more, that something back in his eyes, “what other choice do we have, Khadgar.”

The young mage swallows hard, nodding. He knows that there isn’t another choice. In order to save… in order to protect more people, they have to do this, they have to kill Medivh, here and now.

They climb back onto the gryphon, once more Khadgar in front. They fly, not stopping until they reach their destination, but unlike all the other times they land at the top of the tower, Khadgar using a spell to open a window for them to get into Medivh’s chambers.

The man gives them a questioning look, seemingly more interested in the intrusion of the young mage than of Lothar. He pins Khadgar to the wall with a spell, not seeing the blade Lothar holds in his hand until it is jutting out of his chest. His eyes flash a look of betrayal, and that green Fel poison seeps out of his body Lothar backs away from the dead Guardian, a look of sorrow mixed with resolution on his face. They can hear footsteps, Moroes, climbing up the many stairs, and swiftly make their way back to the window and their waiting gryphon.

They circle, swooping down to land somewhere where Lothar can wipe the blood off his hands, can clean the blade he used to end Medivh’s life, and Khadgar just watches the man break. He pulls Lothar into his arms, knowing the man needs this comfort, this support. How many times now had he wanted this very same thing, someone to hold him, to comfort him, and yet here he is being the comforter.

Lothar holds him tight. And they stand there for a time, silent, both of them broken by the whole ordeal. But they need to go to Karazhan once more, need to see… need to keep up the appearance, to hide what they had done. Khadgar whispers a few words, a spell, a barrier around the memories of what they had done that no one, no other spell user, can break. While he and Lothar will know the truth of their deeds, no one else will find out, not by reading their minds at least.

They return to Karazhan, and are shocked at the state of the once beautiful towers. They look more like ruins now, crumbling and ancient, than how they had appeared less than an hour prior. Moroes greets them solemnly, blood still on his hands. Khadgar and Lothar play their parts, falsely promising Moroes that they will find whoever did this, whoever was responsible for Medivh’s untimely demise.

They don’t stay long. They can’t. And so they leave Karazhan, stopping halfway back to Stormwind to rest for the evening. Khadgar feels a cold hard lump in his belly and he tries to shake it off, tries to feel right about what they did. Lothar looks just as haunted as Khadgar feels, and if there was any other way, any other solution that hadn’t needed Medivh’s death Khadgar is clueless to what it is.

“Khadgar,” and there is something… something about the way Lothar says his name that makes Khadgar pay close attention to Lothar. “I need…”

Khadgar swallows hard, nodding, even though he isn’t really sure what he is agreeing to. And then Lothar kisses him, hard, biting, almost savagely, his hands pulling at Khadgar’s clothes, his hair, and the mage feels that something… that unnameable thing. He kisses back just as hard, needing to feel something other than… other than what has been his life as of late.

Lothar pulls away, eyes searching, eyes begging, eyes demanding, and once more Khadgar just nods. And he allows himself to be undressed, allows himself to help Lothar strip off his clothes, and they are naked, bodies coming back together, rutting against each other. There are no words, only breathy moans, gasps, hisses of pain and pleasure. This isn’t about love, it isn’t even really about sex, it’s about… something more… something primal… something bigger than either of them.

There’s pain, oh by the Light is there pain, but Khadgar relishes, he almost feeds off the pain as if it is a soothing balm, cleansing him body and soul, making him pure from the inside. Lothar is huge, and Khadgar feels like he’s being torn in two and yet begs, not with words, but with sounds, with his hands, with his teeth on Lothar’s skin for more, harder, deeper.

Finally he screams, Lothar’s name ripping from his throat, echoing off the trees. He feels alive, truly and utterly alive for the first time in so very long. His body is covered in scrapes and bruises, bite marks and scratches, and yet Khadgar feels whole.

Lothar just holds him when it is done, holds him and sobs. Not the tears of sorrow of before, but tears of relief, the tears of someone who is finally home after being lost for so long. And Khadgar joins him. They cry, naked and wrapped around each other, the evidence of what they had just done clear as day to anyone who might find them. And when they stop, when the tears no longer fall, they are smiling. They know they must return to Stormwind, to inform the King of Medivh’s death, they know this, and they know they still have the Horde to deal with, the Orcs who are making their home in Azeroth, but at least for now they are home.

-

Khadgar wakes with a jolt, tears of rage and frustration coming to his eyes. He sees a candle being lit next to him and turns to face… Lothar.

“It’s over, Khad, it’s over,” Lothar whispers, pulling him into his arms. It had been years, so many years since they had killed… no ended the dark path that Medivh had put them on, and yet still Khadgar sometimes awoke, thinking he was waking up in Dalaran once more. Lothar too had mornings like this, mornings where Khadgar had to be the one to remind him that it was over.

Khadgar smiled, resting his head against Lothar’s chest, idly playing with his love’s long, white hair. They were old now, had been together for decades. Had kept their secret from all but each other. They’d won, somehow, against overwhelming odds, the people of Azeroth had won. The few Orc clans that had sided with the native Azerothians had settled down, forming communities of their own, intermingling with the races of Azeroth, but the others… those whose only thoughts had been of invasion had been completely and utterly wiped out.

Khadgar thought of how different the world could have ended up, how many lives could have been lost if… and Lothar kissed him, stopping that train of thought. He sighed when the kiss ended, climbing out of bed with a slight grimace of pain. He was no longer a spry young man, but he accepted that fact.

They ate a quick breakfast, packing a few odds and ends into their bags, making sure that the gifts were securely packed away. They were heading to Stormwind today, heading to the city where they had met so long ago to visit the royal family. Prince Varian’s son, little Anduin Llane Wrynn was turning five today, and neither of them wished to miss it.

After the war they had settled down, living a simple life, just the two of them in their little farmhouse. Lothar’s son Callan had stayed in the military, becoming a highly ranked officer of his own doing, and had married, much to both Lothar and Khadgar’s surprise due to those other times, Garona who had been one of the first of her kind to join what was being called the Alliance.

Yet it was always there, that something… something… something… hovering just out of grasp, just out of reach. And neither Khadgar, nor Lothar, wanted to know, wanted to truly find out, just what that something was.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, thank you for reading this.


End file.
